Eulogy

A familiar family: stalwart old guard revolutionaries. young tattood girls. beautiful gay men. Faces from before, but now with babies, doctorates, new tattoos, same smiles. Everyone seems timeless...Exactly how I last saw them, even if i hadn't met so many of them. We are in a secret courtyard behind the church, which i did not even know existed, a secret sanctuary. A massive oak hangs over. A crucifix of old branches rests peacefully behind climbing vines. Tables with orchids, lit by clinical lamps, strewn with potato chips and photos of the beloved. There is genial conversation, an epic soundtrack, and occasionally a sobbing embrace.

He ran away from North Carolina, away from his father, a commanding Methodist minister, he ran away to Berkeley, to spend 38 years in a radical free clinic--in the basement of a Methodist church.

We tell our tales. I tell mine. My speech. i agonized all day, for a few weeks, turning over and over...the profound role of my teachers at the free clinic. In the end it would always be deficient, so i stay dutifully within my five minute limit. I listen to the stories of others, deeply moved by the impact of one human on the lives of many. I am honored to be a part of something. JD, ever the wise motorcycle sage, speaks softly and eloquently of Scotto's impact on the myriad physicans, nurses, PAs hundreds of workers, who then go on to impact the souls of others. This then, the way things unfold.

my speech.
"The Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega Y Gasset once cruelly noted, 'A revolution only lasts fifteen years, a period which coincides with the effectiveness of a generation.' But the legacy of that revolution, of its teachers and institutions can generate a force that lasts 30, 40, 50 years, that ripples deep into the psyche of the next generation and rumbles across continents and seas.

I arrived to the Berkeley Free Clinic entirely by accident, an earnest do gooding 19 year old, full of angst, restless, and fierce in my own bumbling 19 year old way. I wanted very badly to make many wrongs in the world right. And so I arrived, and so I met Scottosaurus.

Scottosaurus was crotchety, perpetually wary, incorrigible. He endured my endless questions: why was his name Scottosaurus? Why did he have a torchlight strapped to his hat? Where were the condoms? How do I shut off the alarm? The toilet has exploded, what now? He always answered thoughtfully, often with a note about history of the Digger’s movement, or the last time the clinic flooded in the late 1980s. We spent many slow shifts discussing the merits of an assortment of science fiction literature, Kantian metaphysics or the changing nature of information and its relation to power. It was Scotto who introduced me to Pete’s coffee, which he typically brewed to the strength of gasoline. He often lumbered about, supremely disgruntled, but his mind was bright, sparkling and nimble. He could mobilize a dense architecture of rapid fire bullet point arguments, exquisitely interwoven clauses, exceptions, and footnotes drawn from endless vaults of profound clinic history and obscure facts about vacuum tubes.

Scotto made me believe in the revolution. The one that may begin in riots, but bleeds deeply into the daily work of life. His life is inseparably and intimately interwoven with this clinic. The impact of the Berkeley free clinic, of its people and vision, cannot be overstated. The people of this place have been teachers, models, inspiration, and comrades in the search for thoughtful impact towards a better world, they illustrate what the steady and rather piecemeal work of Revolution actually entails—long meetings, unclogging toilets, reaching beyond ideology and inflated rhetoric to listen—to listen to clients, to one’s own self, and one’s fellow workers.

Scott himself was a thoughtful connector, a hub in the clinic’s erratic, dynamic and fluxing existence. He observed events, people, and exchanges with the astuteness and analysis of science, and artfully sought to relate, connect, and synthesize a collective wisdom. He was also completely unafraid to tell you were dead wrong and piss you off royally. But he was ceaselessly passionate for the work and for the vision. He cared deeply and indubitably.

My heart is heavy for this loss, heavy that I had not spoken sooner, that I could not express directly these things to Scotto. That in my brief 3 years in the IRC, I had been profoundly moved and transformed. It is true, that many of us, 5, 15, 30 years later, are still full of questions, of angst, of fierce restlessness to make the many wrongs of the world right.

But in that brief time, I gained immensely, what I have learned here has launched me with boldness and knowledge to undertake the good fight—in the clinics of San Francisco and Tanzania, in the marble halls of policy and advocacy, to join others in upholding dignity of each human, and the collective spirit of justice in all action.

Antoine du Saint Exupery, the famed pilot and author of the fearless 'Little Prince' advises 'If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.'

Scotto’s legacy is a pillar of this clinic, and the clinic in turn launched a thousand lives—curing pimples on penises, or empowering each other to learn their own bodies, or by letting people stumble into the courage to make the world “a little less ridiculous,” by knowing there are others who will stand and work with them. Chirp!"